


kardiá

by skyvehicle



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Pawn in Frankincense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 16:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12868146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyvehicle/pseuds/skyvehicle
Summary: Philippa leaves Francis behind in Volos.





	kardiá

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for the first 4 books in the series. also, please note that while this is a modern AU, i did my best to keep the beats as true to the actual story as i could.

They make Philippa check her carry-on bag before they let her board.

The plane is small — they’ll need to fly from Volos to Athens to transfer to a larger plane that will take them to Edinburgh— and the flight attendant tries to explain in broken English that there is no room for her bag.

“I’ll just keep it on my lap, thank you,” Philippa says, tightening her hand on the strap.

“No room for bag,” the flight attendant says, stopping Philippa with a hand in front of her chest. “Please, let me take.”

“No!” Philippa said sharply, drawing back. “Sorry, no. I’m perfectly fine holding it. Please let me keep it on my lap.”

She gets a string of Greek in response. Philippa does not speak Greek. Archie knows a little. She remembers him repeating the word _kardiá_ to the paramedics and gesturing urgently to his own chest. It had sounded like the word ‘cardiac,’ and Philippa knew that much of her own language was derived from other languages. She also knew that a drug overdose could cause damage to a person’s heart.

That was all she knew. Archie had ridden in the ambulance, which sped off, sirens blazing, leaving Philippa sweating in the hot sun on the side of the road with Jerott, Marthe and Kuzum. Their rental car had overheated, and they had to walk the rest of the way into town, since Marthe had refused to hitchhike and nobody had the energy to argue with her. Kuzum sat on Jerott’s shoulders and screeched with delight at all the passing cars.

So. Philippa knew one word of Greek — heart — and it did not serve her particularly well in this escalating situation with the flight attendant.

It ends with Philippa, exasperated, standing in shock as Archie coaxes her bag off her shoulder and hands it over with what must have been a polite muttered apology.

“I can sit window?”

The bright, young voice of Kuzum snaps Philippa back to herself. While this probably wasn’t his first plane ride, he is only two years old, and would not have retained any memories of any previous trips. He’s excited now, his cheeks red, his blonde hair sticking straight up.

“Fippy? Window?”

Philippa lets Kuzum have the window seat.

He never stops asking questions, and Philippa does her best to give him her full attention. She keeps thinking of her bag.

Later, when they’ve taken off and Kuzum has fallen asleep, Archie covers her hand with his own.

“He’s going to be alright,” he says gently.

“I don’t care about him,” she says. “I’m worried about my camera.”

Her voice sounds young and plaintive to her own ears. Already, her eyes are filling with tears.

“It was my dad’s,” she continues, her voice breaking. “It’s expensive. They’re just going to throw my bag and it’s going to break and I won’t… be able to fix it…”

She’s fully sobbing now, deeply aware of her running nose as Archie reaches over and pulls her to his chest, wraps both arms around her and holds her, his chin resting on the top of her head. “He’s going to be alright,” he says again.

Philippa doesn’t have it in her to deny him a second time. She snakes a hand in through Archie’s grip and tries to wipe her nose.

 

 

In Athens, Kuzum doesn’t want to wake up from his nap, and shrieks miserably in Philippa’s arms as they disembark. Philippa tries to ask the flight attendant about her bag, but gets only a standard answer about her connecting flight.

 _landed in Athens_ , she texts Marthe. _layover, and then to edinburgh. will text again when we land._

The three dots from Marthe appear instantly, followed soon after by a response.

_Jared was finally able to get us a fucking airbnb so I can finally take a fucking shower._

A few seconds later: _JEROTT. Fucking autocorrect._

Philippa doesn’t ask her for news. If there was anything new to report, she is sure that Marthe would tell her.

On Instagram, Philippa sees a new selfie that Marthe posted. Her hair is messy, there are dark circles under her eyes and she looks furious. The caption reads: GOTTA LOVE THAT HOSPITAL SMELL.

Philippa taps the heart. The _kardiá_. It would feel wrong not to. She herself has posted only one picture since they left Istambul. They had just crossed the border from Turkey into Greece, and had pulled over at a rest stop. Archie had gone inside while Marthe was struggling with the antique gas pump. Philippa got out of the car to stretch her legs. The car was full, and so she had to ride with Kuzum on her lap.

It felt good to walk, to be in the fresh air. She had made it far enough away that by the time Archie got back to the car, laden with bags, Philippa almost could’t even hear the ensuing battle of him trying to coax his patient into drinking some Gatorade.

"Sorry, but you need to drink. Yes, yes, I know. Please just try. You're not going to be sick. He's fine. She's fine, too. Everyone is fine. No, don't lie down. Come on. One more sip and I'll leave you alone."

The sun was setting, and the sky was an explosion of reds and oranges that took Philippa’s breath away. She took one shot with her proper camera and one with her phone and, amazed to find that there was wifi available, uploaded it to Instagram.

#nofilter

She also texted the photo to her mom, accompanying it with a concise ‘i love you’.

She wants to text her mom now, but isn’t sure what to say. I’m on my way home. I’m bringing a toddler. Don’t worry, he’s not mine. I hope you haven’t turned my room into a gym. I have a lot of money now. Apparently there is a fancy bank in Scotland with my name on an account. It was given to me by the same guy who beat up a stranger who tried to rob us when our car broke down on the side of the road. So if you did turn my room into a gym or never wanted to see me again, I could probably buy my own castle. I miss you. I’m sorry.

Somehow, none of it seems good enough. She’d run away from home and was now dragging herself back, exhausted and ashamed. Assuming that nothing goes wrong with their connecting flight, she will see her mom the following day. She puts her phone away.

On the plane that will take them to Edinburgh, Kuzum gets the window seat again. He has recovered from his earlier meltdown and is now shrieking happily, pressing his face against the window.

Philippa tries to watch the bags get loaded onto the plane, in an effort to find her own bag among them, but the sun is setting and she can’t make anything out. She checks her phone one last time before they take off.

Marthe has posted another photo. A hospital waiting room. Jerott, curled up in an uncomfortable looking chair, asleep. The caption reads: WAITING.

 

 

In Edinburgh, Philippa leaves Kuzum with Archie and sprints to baggage claim. She doesn’t even think to turn on her phone until she is at the carousel, panting, waiting for the bags to start rolling in. She watches as a wall of text from Marthe unfolds, updates every other hour or so.

_nobody here speaks english._

_no one will tell us anything._

_heart failure? brain damage? nobody fucking knows._

_they’re giving him fluids and oxygen._

_still unconscious._

_still nothing._

_still nothing._

_they’re kicking us out. i think they said to come back in the morning but i don’t speak fucking greek so i don’t fucking know!!!!_

Philippa texts Marthe: _just landed in Edinburgh._

When Archie shows up with Kuzum in his arms, the baggage carousel still hasn’t turned on.

“FIPPY FIPPY FIPPY!” Kuzum screams, lunging and reaching for her. Philippa takes Kuzum from Archie and lets him cling to her, his hands tangling in her long hair.

“Marthe texted,” Archie says. His suntan looks even more pronounced in the fluorescent lighting. “Did you see?”

“I…” Philippa croaks, then swallows past the lump in her throat. “I’m just waiting for my bag! I’m afraid they broke my camera. The bag wasn’t marked fragile. I didn’t know they were going to make me check it. If I wanted to check my bag, i would have written fragile on it.”

Archie comes up to rest a hand on her back. Gently, he tells her, “If it doesn’t turn up, we can speak to baggage claim.”

“You don’t have to stay with me,” she whimpers, but doesn’t pull away from him.

“I know,” he says. “It’s alright.”

“I’m not a child. I can talk to baggage claim by myself. I don’t need anyone to help me.”

“I know,” he says again.

Kuzum is singing a nonsense song, his face pressed against Philippa’s throat.

When the baggage carousel finally starts up, Philippa passes Kuzum back to Archie and pushes her way to the front.

One of the first bags to come out is Archie’s suitcase, and Philippa does not even think to help the older man as he struggles to grab it while balancing a toddler in his arms.

After what feels like a lifetime of dread and anxiety, Philippa spots her carry-on. She is standing directly in front of the deposit, so she is able to snatch the bag right away.

She kneels down right there, in everyone’s way, and opens her bag. Frantically, she pulls out the old camera . It’s an antique, and was her dad’s favorite. She turns it over in her hands, examining every part for damage. She unscrews the body cap and scrutinizes the glass. She looks through the viewfinder to see if there’s any dust. She checks every latch, every piece, every side.

The camera is fine. Philippa exhales noisily, refusing to cry on the floor of baggage claim.

Carefully, she packs the camera away again, and rises. She waits for her suitcase. Kuzum and Archie come to join her.

“Where your bag, Fippy?”

“I’ve got it right here. Don’t worry. Everything’s alright.”

“The big one?”

“It’s coming, Kuzum.”

“Why it not here?”

“It was a busy flight. See all the people standing around? They’re waiting for their bags, too.”

“Ohhh…”

 

 

The ride to Midculter is nearly silent. Philippa had given Kuzum her phone to play with, and the boy is immediately engrossed in the shapes, sounds and colors of a game she had downloaded just for him.

As the taxi takes them up the long gravel driveway, as the massive house rises up to meet them, Philippa notices a familiar car parked off to the side.

“Did you…?” She says to Archie, unable to complete the thought. “Kate?”

“I only sent word to Sybilla,” he says. “She’s an old friend. It seemed only fair to let her know about her grandson.”

“Of course,” Philippa tells him.

Kuzum screams when Philippa takes her phone back from him. Fortunately, Archie is the one who distracts and carries him out of the car, giving Philippa time to brace herself. She exits the taxi.

It is much colder in Scotland than it was in Turkey, and Philippa starts to shiver. Her sweater is in her suitcase, and she doesn’t want to fish for it in the middle of the driveway.

The front door opens and out comes Sybilla, moving quickly, her blue eyes intent. “Is this him? Is this Khaireddin?”

“Aye,” Archie says. “Come on, Kuzum. Say hello to your grandmother.”

“Kuzum?”

“A nickname.”

“And my son? Is he coming back?”

Philippa barely even hears the conversation. She feels like she’s underwater, like the rest of the world is foggy and abstract. Her body and clothes still carry the smells of the overheated engine of their rental car, the stale airport air, baby powder from changing Kuzum’s diapers in airport bathroom stalls. She wants to shower, wants to sleep, wants to text Marthe and demand more information. She wants to get on a plane and fly straight back to Volos, march into the hospital and shout: “You don’t get to tell me to leave! I can do what I want, and I’m staying! Also, please don't die!”

But mostly, she wants to not be standing in the driveway of the Crawford estate, just another child being handed over to her family. Because the front door has opened again and there is Kate, looking furious, looking terrified, looking overcome.

Her mother.

“Philippa!”

There is so much emotion in her voice. So much anger, and so much love.

Philippa’s resolve absolutely crumbles.

“Mum,” she says wetly, and is swept up into her mother’s embrace.

 

 

Sybilla had insisted that they stay for tea, but by then Kuzum had begun to suspect that his Fippy might not be staying with him, that she might be leaving him with this white-haired, blue-eyed stranger. His sobs had turned into shrieks, his tantrum into a full-blown meltdown. Archie had suggested a swift exit, and Kate and Philippa obliged.

They drive across the border to England in near silence 

“Millie just gave birth the other day,” Kate says. “Five kittens. They’ve taken over the downstairs bathtub.”

Philippa watches the familiar scenery with new eyes.

“Sybilla told me you were coming,” Kate says. “Archie texted her. She figured I would want to be there.”

Philippa says nothing.

“Your hair looks nice,” Kate says 

“Thank you,” Philippa says.

Kate keeps sparing brief glances at Philippa before looking back at the road.

“Your jeans have crystals on them.”

“They were a gift,” Philippa says. “I didn’t buy them.”

“You look nice,” Kate says. “Grown up.”

In less than an hour, Philippa is home.

“Do you want something to eat? Do you want to see the kittens? They’re in the downstairs bathroom,” she says again.

“I want to shower,” Philippa says. She takes her large suitcase from her mother and drags it into the house and slowly, precariously up the narrow staircase and into her room, which had not been turned into a gym.

Kate does not call up after her. Philippa is careful to listen, just in case.

 

 

Philippa’s late father, Gideon, often joked that he had “developed” an interest in photography. After he retired, he spent some money on some old, fancy cameras and built himself a darkroom in the guest bedroom’s walk-in closet. The guest room was hardly a guest room at all by then, already filled with guitars both acoustic and electric, a bass guitar, keyboard, flute, saxophone and a rudimentary drum kit.

“It’s a shame we didn’t have enough kids to have our own family band,” Gideon had joked once.

“I mean… I wouldn’t want to risk them turning out like the Shaggs, so maybe it’s all for the best.” (Kate had explained, later, who the Shaggs were, much to the detriment of Philippa's eardrums.)

“Ah, yes. We wouldn’t want that.”

Philippa had insisted, very young at the time, that she could be her own family band, and set off to learn to play all the instruments in the room. While she never got the hang of the saxophone or the drums, she was quite good at the piano and guitar, and turned out to have a beautiful singing voice. At the time of Gideon’s death, he had amassed hours upon hours of music he’d recorded with Kate and Philippa.

THE SOMERVILLE SESSIONS was written in sharpie on all the CDs, along with dates, years, and other identifying minutiae.

Gideon had also taught Philippa how to use a proper film camera, and how to develop the pictures herself. He taught her the name and function of every chemical and piece of equipment in the darkroom, and supervised Philippa’s own endeavors. Towards the end, he would sit on the floor, legs splayed out on the carpet, too weak to stand up and watch Philippa’s work, too medicated to really see the proofs that Philippa would hand him. But he was there. 

Philippa is there now, the door firmly shut behind her. She’s braided her wet, clean hair and pinned it up. She’s poured her chemicals out into 3 trays and works in silence to develop a roll of film from her travels.

There’s a shot from inside the changing room at the bathhouse in Baden, taken without thinking, swiftly followed by women shouting at her in German.

A hotel fireplace, and a man standing with his back to her. She overexposed this one by mistake, distracted by checking her phone — no news — so the fire looked like a window of white hot lava. The man’s light hair was overcome by the heat of the flames and, overexposed, lost all its detail.

The sitting room of a terrifying old woman's house, filled with oddities.

The deck of a boat, and a man standing with his back to her.

A beautiful woman, Marthe, staring straight down Philippa’s lens, shameless and direct.

Marthe again, in a small cabin, sitting atop one of the two beds with her shoes on, reading a book. A porthole over her head reveals the churn of the ocean.

A mirror in the cramped ship’s bathroom, Philippa’s face mostly hidden by the camera, her hair cascading wildly around.

A man standing with his back to her, his hair blowing wild in the wind.

A man standing with his back to her, a suitcase in hand, his torso bending from the weight of it.

A man standing with his back to her.

A man standing with his back to her.

A man standing, his head turned. The blue of his eyes and the blonde of his hair are lost to the black and white photo, but not his expression. He looks fierce and wild and exhausted, intelligent and strong and furious, but holding everything back.

Francis.

From developer to stopper to fixer, Philippa clips Francis on a clothesline, hangs him up to dry. Two hands clasped in a lap. Another one of him standing with his back to her. A shot of him talking with Marthe. A shot a moment later when, scowling, he noticed Philippa’s camera. A shot of him on horseback. A shot of many horses in the desert. A shot of him seated, his head in his hands. The shutter was too fast to capture the fact that his hands were shaking.

A man standing with his back to her.

A gas station silhouetted against a sky lit up with the most beautiful sunset.

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until the first drop hits the developer. Then the second. Her tears.

“Pippa. Pippa, my sweet girl,” Kate says, from the doorway. She’d slipped in and shut the door behind her without Philippa even noticing and now she stands, facing her, among a string of photos of Francis standing with his back to her.

“I didn’t hear you come in,”Philippa says, furiously swiping at her eyes before any more tears fall into the chemicals. “Salt water will ruin the solution.”

“Pippa…”

Philippa spares another glance at her mother before looking back at the photo currently in the developer. A man standing with his back to her, but his head turned, his face in profile. He is just seconds away from turning his head fully and shouting at her to put the goddamn camera away.

Kate doesn’t even ask. She just waits until Philippa crumples, until her knees hit the carpet, and then she rushes in.

“He’s in the hospital,” Philippa sobs. “He told me to leave. I didn’t even say goodbye. I don’t know if he’s alive.”

“He’s not alone…” Kate says, careful not to frame it as a question. Careful not to push.

“Marthe. And Jerott. And I know they would tell me if anything happened but all they said is that he’s unconscious… and has an IV and fluids… but Archie was worried about his heart when he collapsed, and Marthe was worried about brain damage, and she doesn’t speak Greek so even if the doctors told her anything was wrong she wouldn’t even know!”

“I’m sure they can find someone there who speaks English.”

“What if they cant?” She gasps. “What if he dies?”

“Come here,” Kate says and squeezes her tighter.

“He said… Mum, he said he's never coming home. He’s too sad and so afraid, and I couldn’t say anything to change his mind.”

“Come here,” Kate says again. “I love you. I love you.”

“I made him promise. He promised me.”

Philippa clings to her mother like a child, sobbing, screaming, gasping on the floor of the darkroom that her father built on a whim. The smell of chemicals burns in her nose when she sniffs, and suddenly she jumps up, remembering the photo she left in the developer.

The photo is completely white, with no trace remaining of what the image had been. 

Her mom takes her downstairs and shows her the kittens.

 

 

Six days later, Marthe shares another photo on her Instagram. The light is low and the angle is awkward, but it is easy enough to see that it was taken in the bedroom of the airbnb she and Jerott have been staying at.

There is a figure lying in the bed, bundled up under the blankets, face entirely hidden. Only the blonde hair is visible, spread out on the the pillow.

_When the cherry was a flower, then it had no stone._

_When the dove was an egg, then it had no bone._

_#oldasspoems #strength #brother_

Francis abhorred social media. He did not have any accounts, and would never see this.

He would never see the string of photos in Philippa’s darkroom either. He would not be back. And so the photos would remain. Philippa thinks that Francis would probably make her burn them if he ever saw.

Even in this picture, his back is turned.

**Author's Note:**

> a big thank you to R for humoring me as i chatted about this, and then for compelling me to actually write this thing.


End file.
